I thought scientists were going to find out exactly how everything worked, and then make it work better. I fully expected that by the time I was twenty-one, some scientist, maybe my brother, would have taken a colour photograph of God Almighty — and sold it to Popular Mechanics magazine. Scientific truth was going to […]
Because there is so much personal anguish, unhappiness, and human mental and physical suffering in the world, many people often wonder how they might personally change to find happiness, contentment, or some elusive something. Or even how to change other people, as if that arrogant illusion could ever work. This question of significant personal change […]
In January 2010, the then US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, doing what she does best, grasped a platitude and ran with it in launching, of all things, an institution called the Newseum. “Information freedom,” she declared, “supports the peace and security that provide a foundation for global progress.” The same figure has encouraged the […]
In war, truth is the first casualty. — Aeschylus, Greek tragic dramatist (525 BC – 456 BC) How many of us learn about Russia from a Russian point of view? Or about Syria from a loyal Syrian? Or Cuba from a Cuban supporter? Or Iran, Nicaragua, North Korea, China or many others on our current […]
Every war is a war against children. –Egalntyne Jebb, founder Save the Children a century ago. These introductions to people I have, that is, keyholing into their lives, immersing into their dreams and sharing their gifts of living, learning their avocations, and then welding connections to my own life with theirs have happened this way […]
The danger signs were everywhere in 2022. With every new law enacted by federal and state legislatures, every new ruling handed down by government courts, and every new military weapon, invasive tactic and egregious protocol employed by government agents, we were reminded that in the eyes of the government and its corporate accomplices, “we the […]
The post 2022’s Danger Signs first appeared on Dissident Voice.
In a closed society where everybody’s guilty, the only crime is getting caught. — Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream The burden of proof has been reversed. No longer are we presumed innocent. Now we’re presumed guilty unless we can prove our […]
The post Everybody’s Guilty first appeared on Dissident Voice.
Remember how the notion of freedom was spun by the ideologues of neoliberalism for decades prior to COVID? The freedom to consume. The freedom to make money. The freedom to be plunged into poverty and debt. Platitudes about ‘individual responsibility’ and ‘standing on your own two feet’. A relentless ideological attack on the state […]
I have people worried that as white writers they will be hit with “cultural appropriation” if they write a novel with characters who are not of their own race. You know the deal — writing about barrios, or ghettos or even a mix of people in a big city, people outside the lily white background […]
The post Malcolm X Hit 2022 on the Head first appeared on Dissident Voice.
Premise The following is a light piece on a man. The dream of becoming a tap dancer. A white kid from West Virginia (via San Fran and Guam) who got the Big Apple bug, that is, the Great White Way bug to be a hoofer on Broadway. The man comes to me via my volunteer […]
The post End of the Year Story of Hope first appeared on Dissident Voice.
